the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want
by halyorked
Summary: She's barefoot, her high heels discarded under a tree or in a pile of leaves somewhere for hikers to find later.


She's barefoot, her high heels discarded under a tree or in a pile of leaves somewhere for hikers to find later. The mud is soft under her feet even though it's almost dried out and she leaves sparse footprints behind her, spread out and hidden by leaves and patches of grass.

Her footprints are almost silent compared to the way that he's following behind her. He's not being that loud, but sensible boots don't sneak through the woods the way that bare feet do. It passes through her mind to ask him to take them off, to have them be the same in yet another way.

She thinks that at another time she would run from him and try to get away, make it a game, a chase or hide and seek, but right now she likes that he's right behind her, little more than a few steps away.

He's too dangerous to be playing games with now anyway.

Caroline climbs up and then jumps off the trunk of a fallen tree. Landing hard on her feet the softness of the ground doing little to stop the ache she feels run up her legs. It's gone a moment later and she presses her feet harder into the earth, there are flower petals scattered around all over the place here and it's like a twisted romantic cliché, the Earth scattering petals for her love.

She leans down to grab one of the less tread on ones and runs it across her fingers. There's a quiet snapping a moment later and Klaus is holding a new flower out to her, bright and pink and lovely. She leans forward to tuck the petal into his pocket, before she takes it from him.

She could crush it right now; squeeze it in her palm until there was nothing left but a stain on her hand and a wad of mush on the ground. She gently squeezes it between two of her fingers, feeling the way the flower gives a bit under her light touch, before deciding that that would be a waste of a beautiful thing.

As he walks forward, his hand stretched back to grab for her, she wonders if that's how he felt about her. The thought almost wants to make her drop the flower and crush it, drop his hand and stop walking. She doesn't though, she just grabs tighter to his hand and a bit looser to the flower stem and they walk on.

* * *

They come to a creek not long after that, and she wades out to stand on slippery rocks near the middle. She jumps from rock to rock and he laughs that she's making a fool out of herself, acting like a child. Where she's at the water isn't too deep, but when she kicks at him, splashing water all over the place, she loses her balance and falls in.

She's soaked in an instant, and her heart is pounding but it's peaceful under the water so she stays down for a moment, reaching a hand up and stretching to get her fingers above the water. She wiggles them around for a moment before pulling them back down sitting up.

Klaus is laughing at her from where he sits on the bank, even though he's splashed damp in places, and it gives her an idea. She stands up and wades through the water back to him. Her dress clings to her, heavy and dripping water, her hair is plastered down, and she's sure that she looks like a mess, but she doesn't care.

Before he has the chance to run away, she jumps forward and grabs at him. Her arms wrap tightly around him and then they're wrestling and play-fighting. It doesn't take long until they're both falling down into the water again.

When he resurfaces, Klaus has an angry look on his face but Caroline's laughing, light and happy and drenched down to her bones. It doesn't take long for him to be smiling too, grinning down into the water and chuckling.

She settles down a minute later, splashing at him like the child he accused her of acting like earlier, but she doesn't stop. When he starts splashing back a second later, she grins and ends up with a mouthful of cool creek water. She widens her eyes and goes to open her mouth, before realizing that he will just use that as an opportunity to make her drink more water. She's just glad that it tasted mostly clean. They'd kicked up some mud in the water, but nothing's going to make her sick.

He shoves her under the water, and she wishes that she had a way to sneak up on him. Even if the water were deeper he would feel it moving and she would be found out, so she thinks that speed might be more on her side. Especially since they aren't fighting to the death.

They're just messing around and for the first in months she feels like the teenager that she's supposed to be. (The last time she had felt like this had been with him too, and she wonders what that says about her, about what she and her friends think of him, of what they're like together. She puts it out of her mind though, leaving those thoughts for another day.)

She comes back above water and keeps going, moving and moving until she's pressing him into the water. Caroline knows that she's just letting her do it, but it doesn't stop the feeling of triumph that she feels.

He comes back above water and wipes at the water on his face, pushes short hair off of his face, and just sits and looks at her.

While she still looks triumphant, her smile falls away because as always he looks at her with such devotion and caring that it scares her, even now. He's dangerous, possibly even more so now that's she's gone and gotten her heart tangled up with his, but she wants to kiss him so she does, leans forward and stretches, moves so that she can press her lips against his.

She doesn't think that she knows how to look at someone like that, doesn't know how to make a look cut deep and straight to the core, so instead she presses it into his mouth. She brings a hand to his hair and curls her fingers into the wet strands. When he kisses back a moment later, she thinks that he understands.


End file.
